Mannerisms

The Genius Who Was Prosecuted For Mail Fraud

2009-07-03T13:45:28Z

Lee De Forest inventor of the Audion tube, also called both the 'De Forest valve', and the 'triode valve', which allowed the amplification of radio waves so they could travel long distances was, in 1913, sued for mail fraud by the Attorney-General of the USA.

Will Q3 Be A Good One?

2009-07-03T00:26:23Z

Is end demand for semiconductors beginning to grow? Some analysts seem to think that Q3 could see a return to growth in real end-user demand.

FABLE: The Company That Depended On One Man

2009-07-02T13:47:55Z

There was once a company founded in 1951 that was a by-word for successfully managing technological transition.

Good Old EU (Again): Cheaper Calls And Texts

2009-07-02T02:53:52Z

To start two posts in a week with 'Good Old EU' is totally unexpected. On Tuesday it was the EU's action in standardising mobile phone chargers, now it's bringing down the cost of phone calls and texting while abroad.

IPO Market Coming Back To Life

2009-07-01T13:42:50Z

The IPO market is sputtering back into action with Morgan Stanleyforecasting 35 to 40 floats in Europe in the next two years, with 127 floats in the worldwide IPO pipeline according to Thomson Reuters, and with a big IPO success yesterday in the US with software start-up LogMeIn.

Top Ten Semiconductor Companies 2008

2009-07-01T01:54:35Z

Thanks to IC Insights for this one - the top ten semiconductor companies for 2008. Here they are:

Good Old EU: Phone Chargers To Be Standardised

2009-06-30T13:45:20Z

Good Old EU. Now one doesn't often say that. But getting the mobile phone manufacturers to agree to introduce a standard socket for chargers is just brilliant.

New York Air Traffic Control To Get Height-Indicating Radar.

2009-06-30T02:40:04Z

'Following the investigation of the disastrous mid-air collision of two aircraft over New York late last year, the Federal Aviation Agency is hoping to speed up installation of altitude-indicating radar.'

So starts the 'American Letter' feature in the edition of Electronics Weekly for March 8^th 1961.

Intel Unveils Futuristic Product Concepts

2009-06-29T13:47:39Z

Intel has unveiled some futuristic product concepts at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California

Europe Is Second Largest Electronics Producing Region.

2009-06-29T03:46:14Z

The electronics industry is worth €1.14 trillion, compared to the car industry's €1.8 trillion. Half of the industry's production comes from Asia, and half of the industry is in the data processing and telecommunications sectors.

Acorn's First Overdraft

2009-06-26T13:56:26Z

Winning the contract to supply the computer for the BBC's series aimed at educating the UK on the use of computers was, initially, a mixed blessing for Acorn Computers.

How Jolly Impactful

2009-06-26T01:15:44Z

My thanks to Brent Przybus of Xilinx for a great new Americanism - the word 'impactful'. Impactful is a pearl of the genre: you know immediately what it means, it's useful, and it's a concise way of saying: 'it has impact'. One word instead of three, an obvious meaning, and it serves a purpose - the three qualities of a top-flight Americanism.

FABLE: The Company Which Couldn't Make A 256k DRAM

2009-06-25T13:49:01Z

Back in the 1970s there was a large company which paid $380 million for a semiconductor company which had been the first to market with a 4k DRAM, a 16k DRAM and a 64k DRAM.

XMOS And The Unreasonable Man

2009-06-25T01:02:36Z

The trouble with government agencies is that they are run by people with consensual mind-sets. So when the government establishes an agency to foster innovation, it's establishing an oxymoron.

What Are Intel And Nokia Up To? If Anything?

2009-06-24T13:49:14Z

Here comes Intel, again, making a run for the mobile phone market. First time it tried buying start-up telecoms IC companies; second time it started making ARM chips (X-Scale); now, it's going the big company route - a new chip (Atom), a new OS (Moblin), a big acquisition (Wind River), and a big company collaboration (Nokia). Third time lucky?